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Légendes, S175

Introduction

The St Francis Legends are two of Liszt’s finest examples of conjuring up natural imagery at the keyboard, the first with its very delicate imitation of birdsong—of which we are given quite a feast before the sermon begins—and the second with its opportunity to describe a storm at sea. The first is inspired by the well-known story, as related in The Little Flowers of St Francis of Assisi, when St Francis, marvelling at a multitude of birds in the trees by his path, breaks off his travels in order to preach to them. Liszt’s ‘other’ patron saint, St Francis of Paola, is not so famous, but his story provokes a stupendous musical response from Liszt, who kept a painting of the legend in his study for many years: a ferryman refused to carry the saint across the Straits of Messina, saying that saints ought to be able to walk on water. Improvising both raft and sail from his cloak and staff, St Francis crossed safely. Each of these legends quotes one of Liszt’s own choral pieces inspired by each saint: the first uses a theme from Cantico del Sol, S4; the second a passage from An den heiligen Franziskus von Paula, S28. The narrative background to the pieces in no way hampers Liszt from devising a very satisfying musical structure.

Recordings

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Published in 1866, with a dedication to his daughter Cosima, Liszt’s Two Legends were completed by 1863 at latest. A poem of the most precious perfume – filigreed, delicate and solemn – the first (in A major, with a sermon in D flat) was inspired by a well-known passage from the Little Flowers of Assisi:

He lifted up his eyes and saw the trees which stood by the wayside filled with a countless multitude of birds, at which he marvelled and said to his companions: ‘Wait a little for me in the road, and I will go and preach to my little brothers the birds.’ And he went into the field, and began to preach to the birds that were on the ground, and forthwith those which were in the trees came around him and not one moved during the whole sermon, nor would they fly away until the Saint had given them his blessing.

The second (in E major) is about Francis of Paola (Liszt’s patron saint), the Calabrian who is said to have walked across the waters of Messina, his cloak spread before him like a sail. In it the sea veritably roars and thunders, Francis’s theme rising out of the deep, weathering the storms and whirlpools of Scylla and Charybdis finally to bid us farewell in a miraculous blaze of celestial light and glory.

New evidence suggests that both pieces were written originally for orchestra, in which form they were premiered in Berlin in October 1982.